Posted
by
timothyon Saturday March 21, 2009 @07:59PM
from the stomach-for-human-weakness-but-not-the-eye dept.

MBCook writes "AppleInsider has an article discussing Dell's attempt to enter the smartphone market, as well as the news that the phone was rejected by carriers as too dull. The article doesn't pull punches: 'Dell's failure to successfully step from the commodity PC business into the mobile handset market should come as no surprise, as smartphones requires expertise in software platform development, consumer design savvy, and portable device engineering, all things Dell has never demonstrated any proficiency in.'"

Good catch.. Google shopping results lead me to believe that this is not selling yet, but coming in April.. It does have some neat specs.. quad band, dual sim with an onboard gps receiver is a combo I have searched for before and not found.. I have found many dual sim with TV tuner (soon to be useless in the US) but none with the GPS.

I think what SuperKendall is trying to say is not that the words are pronounced phonetically differently, but rather that the word is emphasized the wrong way.
It's sort of like the difference between "HE told you that?!" and "He told YOU that?!" Same words, same pronunciations, different meanings.

Bring on the G2 (or whatever it will be called for Sprint and Verizon) in April. I'm also curious how Nokia will respond now that they own Qt, and they've got working fully functional KDE 4 desktops on their n810 tablets.

Bring on the OLED screens that are thinner, use less battery, and have much higher resolution.

Smartphones are going to explode in the next two years. People said you didn't "need" a camera in your phone, or GPS, and they're becoming commonplace. Most people don't "need" a smartphone, but everyone will have one, and we'll find new uses for them.

Well, if they went ahead with Dell's Alienware cylon model [instablogsimages.com] phone, it might shoot back before exploding. As an aside, it would have been nice if the summary writer linked to a picture, or to an article that linked to a picture, or even linked to an article which linked to an article which linked to a picture.

umm.... You forgot a major factor. Cellphones/Smartphones are carried by people. So they need to look good, in many ways that is more important then any technical detail. When the iPhone was released it is much slimmer and sleeker then the other smart phones out there. If it was a big block even with more cool tech and still had good battery life it wouldn't sell. If you cary it with you it becomes a fashion accessary too, so it has to look good.

If you can't have a fashion victim feeling comfortable with your phone, then you have just found painted yourself into a crowed corner of other generic looking devices. If you are going to charge someone $200-$400 for a phone, then it better not look like it was put together without any care for appearance. If you want to make a generic phone, be ready to charge no more than $50 for it.

Unfortunately it isn't that easy. I worked for the worlds biggest mobile phone vendor in retail strategy for a while. In most markets consumers have been trained that phones are worth $0 (on a monthly plan) despite the fact they end up paying more overall than if they bought them outright. This means the network operators have enormous influence. If a phone doesn't get selected for inclusion on a plan, it has nearly zero chance of selling to the mass market. Even the worlds #1 mobile phone vendor had to pla

Uh, does anyone else find it a bit suspect that this is from a site called Apple Insider? For me that completely ruins the credibility of this story. I mean, any smartphone is miles less dull than the generic clamshells and candybars that the telcos keep pushing.

Uh, does anyone else find it a bit suspect that this is from a site called Apple Insider? For me that completely ruins the credibility of this story. I mean, any smartphone is miles less dull than the generic clamshells and candybars that the telcos keep pushing.

Right, but the summary started off with "AppleInsider has an article..." which immediately set off my bullshit detector. Even the marketwatch article is based on what an analyst said, and I for one don't put much worth in what analysts say, because there's no source cited. And the summary is written in a purposely inflammatory way and bashes Dell for no good reason. I don't own a Dell, but the XPS and Studio lines look really attractive. Bleh. I don't know if I should have expected better from Slashdot.

Appleinsider used to be (and probably still is) the best *editorial* apple rumor website. However, more recently their best writer (Prince McLean) has become more like Daniel Eran Dilger of RouglyDrafted in his style and bias. In the websites "Road to Snow Leopard" series about OS 10.6, occasionally McLean would cite Dilger concerning random tidbits of Mac history, but not often enough to make the articles bad like Dilgers self-citing poorly written biased excuses for articles are. More recently though, McL

So, because they specialize in "Apple rumors", that makes them unbiased when reviewing competitor's phones?

No, but despite some of the epic bias in this particular article, it still brings an interesting view to the table. Take for example, the introduction of the Blackberry Storm, the G1, or the announcement of the Palm Pre. The media fell in love with each, claiming each would be an iPhone killer to the extreme (the "killer" status was declared for the G1 before the iPhone was even actually out, and no consumers have actually dealt with anything but display prototypes of the Pre still to this day). In all thre

McLean is Dilger. If you head over to RD, you'll notice he links over to every McLean article on Appleinsider.

Offhand, though, I haven't really detected any "shades of" styling when reading one article or another. Perhaps when writing AI articles he's not as apt to put gratuitous Microsoft-bashing in it, and anything that's simply "news reporting" over editorializing is apt to appear on AI primarily and not matter as much for him to blog about on RD, but the writing style has always been similar, and wh

Almost no one believes Apple "invented" them. (Besides which, it's usually hard to credit who "invents" one thing and when, especially since general tech concepts tend to have a very long "conceptual" stage to begin with, from prognosticators to research papers, to actual research, to who gets it to market first and in what form...)

Very few, however, will disagree that Apple brought those and more to the public, in mature and accessible form, and prompted explosions in popularity.

Ignoring the fact that the article from AppleInsider was reporting on the actual story (adding their own spin on it)? AppleInsider posted it because it was relevant, and is biased towards Apple, but they didn't write the analysis, they just reported on it. The original article (also linked from the summary) says the exact same thing.

True, but it seems like the original article doesn't have any sources, and there still isn't even any confirmation that Dell is working on a smartphone at all. Also, Slashdot should have linked to the MarketWatch article and not linked to the AppleInsider at all, since it's just a flamebait post. Nowhere in the MarketWatch article does it mention carriers thinking it was dull; in fact, I would not be surprised if the lack of interest was because it included too many features that they couldn't cripple, espe

I guess I don't really understand the economics behind handsets. I've always bought my own and never through the service provider. Thanks to AT&Ts following the GSM standard, I just put my SIM chip in whatever phone I want and I'm good to go.

What is the likelyhood that some manufacturer comes out with some compelling device and sell it directly to the consumers? The consumers use it in spite of the desires of the network operators.

Your behavior just hi-lights the fact that you don't understand the economics. A portion of that monthly service payment to the carrier either goes to pay off the cost of the phone subsidy or directly to the carriers profit line. At the very least get one of the free phones with it to keep as a back-up. If you don't want it then donate it to charity. But I'm sure the AT&T stockholders appreciate your contribution to their dividend checks.

But in the end the carriers want the contracts. A few outliers without them is no big deal, but if people could jump around on a whim nobody wins. The fact that if a carrier wins a customer it means 2 years of that customer allows them to spread the cost of acquisition (a fixed cost per/customer)over a longer period of time.

This is reflected in the fact that if you pre-pay, not only do you pay more for the phone, you also pay more for the usage.

I do as the grandparent poster, bringing my own phone with T-Mobile USA, but I use a pre-paid SIM that cost me about $8 to start the account and about $16/month in usage fees.

I agree, if you are a heavy user and have no intention to switch carriers or reduce usage during the contract period, a well chosen contract with a "free" phone may be cost effective. But I crunched the numbers when I was in such a situation, and found that after a year or so I was wasting money because I had signed on to the 1000 minu

What is the likelyhood that some manufacturer comes out with some compelling device and sell it directly to the consumers?

Low, because most people want a fancy device and won't think a second thought about buying into a 2 year contract in exchange for a $100 superphone.

Most people wouldn't pay $600 for a phone up front. The only company that -could- get away with it and be successful these days would be Apple, but they get a huge amount of concessions from the carriers because they can bring the hype and th

I've never bought a phone outright and don't plan to, because if you sign a contract, you'll get steep discounts on the phone.

If you're talking about a $100 phone (no subsidy) then I can understand, as $100 may be worth not being tied to a contract.

But for people who want the latest phones, you save hundreds of dollars for buying through the provider. For example, you can get an iPhone right now for $99 from AT&T if you use them for two years. Rumor is they will go on sale soon, no contract needed, fo

Dell missed its opportunity when it unceremoniously dumped its PDA line, after having one of the best with the x50v they pulled away to focus on MP3 players that no one wanted delivering millions of what were nearly fanatical users straight into the hands of what would now be their competition.

I owned an Axim. At the time I bought it, they had the same or better specs then the iPaqs for $50-$100 less. They ran the same OS (Windows Mobile) and a year or so down the line when MS updated, Axim owners got a free update and owners of the HP model I had considered at the same time got the shaft. Really the only place HP beat them was on appearance.

It seems more likely that Dell decided there was not a lot of money to be made in pda's (they have always been a niche market) and gave up their slowly gaining market share to go chase the iPod.

It seems more likely that Dell decided there was not a lot of money to be made in pda's (they have always been a niche market)

Not true, in the golden age of the Palm they were not a niche at all. Tons of people had Palm devices, well outside of any niche...

A true PDA is for sure a niche now, because so much of the usefulness was taken away by cellphones. Dell didn't get in early enough to that party, even though you could see it coming a long way away (Palm did, they just took the wrong actions).

They should be shooting for volume sales of a hot platform, like their current PC strategy is now.

Instead of trying to build a gee-whiz unique product, they should be building a phone that's cheaper than an HTC G1, runs Android and is available to a variety of networks. Dull, sure, but at a pricepoint beating the G1, it doesn't have to be a flashy offering, just usable and capture the enthusiasm of the G1 fanbase and potential market. 3G, Bluetooth, Web and Android apps.

Instead of trying to build a gee-whiz unique product, they should be building a phone that's cheaper than an HTC G1, runs Android and is available to a variety of networks.

That sounds a lot like what they did, actually. We don't know how much they wanted for this, but it was capable of Android and Windows Mobile and they tried marketing it to multiple providers. The providers weren't interested. They want low end non-smart phones and high end smart phones.

They shouldn't be selling to providers. They should be selling unlocked phones directly to the public, cheaply. All of the providers here (not sure about the USA) offer SIM-only deals that are cheaper than versions that come with a contract, and a lot of people now switch phones and contracts independently.

According to an article in the register carriers are more concerned, as ould be expected, with how to extract a profit from a phone [theregister.co.uk] rather than an innovative feature set.

Given the phones that have not made it to the US market, and the fact that the iPhone has to bypass the carriers all together, I do not trust their judgement on how interesting a phone might be. OTOH, given that it is a Dell, and does run an MS OS, I would assume that it was just another phone, perhaps full of gee whiz features, but not worth stocking over any other mobile device.

Perhaps they should approach Cricket or Boost Mobile. I don't think either of those has a smart phone, and Dell can likely make it cheap enough, as MS probably has some motivation to get into this extremely low level market sector.

Jobs practically had to ram the iPhone up ATT's ass before they would allow it on their network. Funny how profitable it turned out to be for them.

That's total bullshit. Apple could have released an unlocked GSM iPhone and it would have worked on both T-Mobile and AT&T in the US, and most carriers world-wide. The fact that the iPhone is carrier-locked is solely Apple's responsibility, and they have gone to court in order to try to keep it that way.

It probably will be another typical wince bases phone, probably rather similar to the Touch and others, on the first look an iphone clone ui, but as soon as you hit the start button wince will rear its ugly head out of it and you will be forced to use the stylus...

Apple is selling the most strongly carrier-locked phone ever, and that is Apple's choice. They could have offered the iPhone unlocked. Instead, Apple went out of their way of setting up exclusive contracts with carriers in every country they offer the iPhone in.

What Apple managed to do is to divert some of the revenue stream from carriers to themselves, by offering for-pay add-on services with the phone, but that is hardly a win for consu

Dull as in boring, or dull as in not shiny (apple people, there is a difference).

If they mean boring, then fine, I can see that as a bad thing

If they mean not shiny, then what's the problem? I specifically bought a non-shiny phone (w385) because it has rubber on 50% of the phone and neither scratches nor needs a cover that makes it 150% thicker. If only it were unlockable...

Dell seems to be trying to be Apple with their smart phones and their bizarre new aluminum netbook. Commodity equipement makes only innovate in reducing their production costs not in product development/design.

Dell is in a tight spot being squeezed by Apple at the high end and other commodity PC manufacturer at the low end.

Am completely shocked. Really. I just can't believe that APPLINSIDER would publish an article claiming Dell isn't able to make a consumer savvy, portable well-designed smartphone able to compete with other leading competitors. Man, it's like they are openly advocating for another company with an entry in that market which touts itself as the ultimate consumer savvy designer portable device manufacturer or something. That's just brutal.

It has been for several years IMO, but now it's becoming clear that they won't be able to alter the course of events. I think the fate of the company is no longer in its own hands. A sale is more likely than a bankruptcy. I can see IBM taking another shot at this market segment:) It might be worth a shot if they can get it cheap enough.

Was build-to-order and fast delivery. They grew like crazy by being aggressive cost-cutters, and when they cut the costs to the point where their low quality started to get on their customers' nerves, their decline was a foregone conclusion.

Ever since I've been forced to use Blackberry 8300, I long for a regular, dull phone. One where I don't have to put magnifying glasses on to know what the heck I am doing. One where I can easily do what I need without having to go through layers upon layers of incomprehensible menus.

If not for the fact that I have to use it, and that the company is paying the bill (that is the only good aspect of it), I would use it for target practice and go back to my old, dull, basic clamshell Motorola, where I could do everything with one hand without even looking at it.

You can still buy them 2nd hand, and mine still works. Does the job, no BS, no gadgets, just works.

BTW, I also have a Neoi 809 Swiss Air edition (neoi.de) and that is so small it takes too long to find it when it rings - and that *really* has small buttons - but it's very good for running as it has no weight and comes with 2 batteries.

Personally, the most useful phone I have is the Sony Ericsson P1i, although the soft buttons means the "end call" button can vanish in a pile of menus. The company iPhone is

I have the same issue as you.I never use bells and whistles on phones. Mobile phones are simply a convenience for me to call someone if I need to, while I'm out and about.I like them to be simple, slim and usable.

Check out the Samsung SGH-X230. I just picked one up outright for ~$130. It's.6 cm deep (ie, very slim), big display, hard buttons and it just works.

The real problem is that Dell even needs to go to the carriers and that the US mobile phone market is so fragmented. Most phones are carrier locked, many carries don't use SIM cards, and the ones that do and that allow unlocked phones (T-Mobile and AT&T) still use weird frequencies.

There are at least two GSM carries in the US, T-Mobile and AT&T. Dell should produce low-cost, high quality unlocked phones for these carriers, and maybe even a dual GSM/CDMA phone that could be used with most carriers;

I've always said a "smartphone" will never cut the mustard for me. I don't care how many PDA-like features it has, the PDA features will always be inferior to a real PDA. What I want is a PDA with phone features like voice and text. A netbook with a voip service would sum up the functionality I want, though I'd want it in a smaller form factor.

I'd probably want to be able to do everything I can do from my desktop computer, to some degree. "PDA features" probably wasn't a good description, I admit. A fully featured office suite on my phone would be a nice start. IM clients that haven't had all the features stripped from them, too. Plenty of my friends have smartphones that have an MSN client, and they don't even support font colours or avatars. Before I knew about Linux (and different CPU architectures...), I thought it would be nice to be ab

If you want your normal cellphone, by all means, buy it. You see, they make different phones for different people with different needs. They make tons of phones for people just like you! No one is stopping you.

Now, I'll go back to my smartphone that suits my purposes much better. After all, I bought it, I have the right to get what I want out of my phone. Why is this always such a problem around here? And worse, who mods these people up for people having choices?

Back to the story. Dell (as in Micheal Dell) needs to walk down to the corner where they are working on Mobile phones, bitchslap everyone for a little while then remind them what Dell's main asset is.

People like to buy stuff from them. If Dell started to sell and support Apple PCs as just another product line, sales of Apple PCs would climb.

This is no accident:

#1. In some places, (Jamaica) Dell provides onsite support and a warehouse of spare parts that's already cleared customs and can thus be delivered in compliance with the Next business day or even the 4 hour response Warranties.

#2. Dell still has the best designed site for customizing and buying Computer hardware.

In simple terms Dell doesn't need it's own products. It just needs decent quality stuff with the Dell brand on it. Let someone else design and build the Dell phone. Ignore the carriers (except for making sure the phone is compatible) and start selling unlocked Dell phones for whatever they cost to make and deliver plus a markup.

Once the carriers see the numbers delivered whoever has the fewest on it's network will go to Dell on bended knee to get a bundling deal.

People like to buy stuff from them. If Dell started to sell and support Apple PCs as just another product line, sales of Apple PCs would climb.

Maybe from the added "credibility" of being associated with Dell, but not because of how much gee whiz fun it is to buy from Dell's online store. Have you ever tried getting a straight price from them? You get different options and pricing depending on whether you go in via home or office or corporate or data center or whatever bullshit classification scheme they decide for you, then it's uselessly bare until you add to it, and then maybe there's a sale that day and maybe not, or maybe a "deal" and why the hell can't they just give you a straight price?

Try buying something from store.apple.com and compare the experience.

Some might argue that Dell is a better value because you're not paying the "Apple tax' for the user experience. That's true so long as you believe that the user experience is worthless.

The grandparent is correct if you replace 'people' with 'companies'. If you are a corporate buyer, then Dell's sales and support is far better than Apple's. If you are an individual then Apple provides a simpler store and (generally) better support.

For a corporate customer, Dell will send out on-site technicians to handle repairs and offer around 50% off their marked prices. Apple will tell you to carry the machine to the nearest authorised repair center (the next city along the coast in our case, aro

Don't want to pay for the logo- don't blame you. Thats also part of why I don't buy Dell- they're a good $500 over building it yourself for gaming rigs, and 200-300 over local builders.

But none of that excuses their horrible, horrible website and pricing scheme. There should be a base price, a thing that allows you to pick upgrade options for each part all on one page, and a flat increase for each option. I shouldn't get different prices based on my starting point or the order I choose my options. The

Except that there is a thing that allows you to pick upgrade options for each part, all on one page.

Granted, there's no flat increase, and I'll cede that point, but when ordering a box, switch it to list view from that annoying as sin icon view. It'll put all the parts stuff on one tab, accessories that you're probably going to skip on another, additional services like special warranty modifications (keep your hard drive, etc) on another tab, and the last tab builds what you've chosen.

The site is not to everyone's taste and it has been getting worse. But hey. At least it works. You would be surprised how many people go to a site to buy something and click away with the credit card untouched because they just couldn't figure out how to get what they want even though the site in question sells it.

As for the service. I will not comment on the quality because I used to be one of the guys who went to people's homes and offices to repair Dell gear so my my bias is clear e